Sunday April 2, 2023
Another beautiful day at sea and being Palm Sunday, we both attended our respective church services followed by another talk by the fascinating South African adventurer – Riaan Manser who with his wife, rowed from Morocco to New York City, and also from San Francisco to Hawaii in record time of 38 days and 3 hours for their honeymoon! He is a very engaging speaker and tells various stories with pictures of the good, the bad, and the near death experiences. On one occasion, he was out of the boat swimming in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and could not get back onto the boat due to exhaustion. Luckily the fishing line they have out to catch fish for their food, got caught on his watch strap and his wife was able to “reel in the big catch”!!
The second lecture was equally engaging as it was Dave Mallinder who took up where he left off yesterday with the story of the Beatles. Yesterday he told the story from the start to their break-up, and today he took it from the break-up to today. He went through the cancer and stabbing of George; the killing of John; and the musical achievements of Ringwood; as well as Paul and the band Wings. Only once did three of them get back together (all except Paul) after their break up. It was interesting to hear that all had successful musical careers after the break up, on their own.
The other big excitement was the tug of war between different groups of workers on the ship. It had been 3 years since they did this and they only do it on a world trip, with the ladies, the men and mixed teams all competing for the “Golden Knot”. This is a trophy made of rope, painted in gold and carefully arranged in a curl on a wooden base. This is given to the winning team in each category. First the ladies, 6 on each team competed and as there were 4 teams the two who lost were eliminated. Next the mixed, 3 men and 3 women on each team. One team won easily but the crowd complained as one team had 4 men and 2 women, so it had to be repeated. Once they were down to 2 teams, it was the turn of the men. Each department: Housekeeping, Tours, Mechanical, Entertainment, Deck hands, Mechanical etc put up a team and went through the elimination rounds. It was then down to the three finals. For those not familiar with the game – a long piece of rope is placed on the deck. A hanging piece of duct tape is hung around the center of the rope hanging some 1-14 inches down from the rope. Then three pieces of duct tape are placed on the deck as marks, one in the center of the “court” (flat deck area with sides marked off with yellow tape) and the other two some 10 feet to either side of the central mark. The objective is for each team to pull the rope so that the center duct tape hanging from the rope passes the outside mark on the deck on their side. There was one unfortunate incident where one of the players collapsed and had to be attended to by the medical staff, who had formed one of the teams so all were present on deck. He eventually got up and walked off under his own steam. The results were – Ladies: Cunard Singers; Mixed: Spa team; and Men: Maintenance Department (all very large burly men). Captain Andrew Hall awarded the trophies and a terrific time was had by all.
Anne attended the on-line service of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The evening show was a split one with the Cunard Singers and Dancers and the very good, harmonious Irish group of four men – The Four Harps.
Roger & Anne Travels 